MYSTERY OR HOAX?

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 114, 11 February 1928, Page 24

MYSTERY OR HOAX?

THE GLOZEL DISCOVERIES

A few miles from Vichy, in France, whence come the mineral waters, is a tiny village standing on a spur of high ground, overlooking a deep valley, washed on three sides by a stream. For vears, Glozel has, as the village is call td, been inhabited and farmed by a family named Fradin, which at present includes three generations—a grandfather, a father, and a grandson. Ploughing one day Emile Fradin, the grandson, unearthed a curious brick, with signs upon it resembling rude writing. With the brick were some stones bearing crude pictures. Emile showed them to the village school mistress who handed them to the school inspector, who was duly impressed. Finally, the discoveries came to the knowledge of Dr. Morlet, of Vichy, who rented the field and carried out further excavations. During the last year 4000 objects have been found,„ and they are now to. be seen in the Fradin’s farmhouse or in Dr. Morlet’s house at Vichy, among them stone implements, idols, ripgs, and inscribed tablets (says the correspondent of the “Argus”).' One pebble has engraved drawings of the forequarters of two animals with pointed ears, elongated snouts, and shaggy hair, believed to be wolves, whole “crossed out” with parallel scratches. A stone ring has 'or 14 signs, including an “H,’’ and “X, and “S,” a “V,” a Greek “delta,” an “O,” and a “Z.” A clay vase, found on June 21, is ornamented with a mouthless mask, the eyes being formed by a circle in relief, pierced in the centre. These discoveries were made in a piece of red earth and clay, about 80 vards by 30 yards, within 3ft. of the surface. The ground had long been left fallow. It was covered with brushwood, and apparently young Fradin was the first man to put i* under the plough. The suggestion was . made that the place was once a neolithic burial ground. The most interesting discoveries were the tables with t.heit sharplv incised characters, in winch the swastika appears frequently. One set of signs was interpreted as Glozel ” lienee the name attaching to the discoveries. Fradin’s first discoveries were made in March, 1924. Dr. Mor. let was impressed bv the importance ot the Glozel discoveries, and he brought them to the notice of some well-known archaelogists. Among these was the palaeontologist. Professor Boule; to whom Dr. Moi let submitted an engraved stone containing letters and a sketch of a reindeer, in the familiar prehistoric stvle Professor Boule asked permission tQ wash the stone and he was allowed to clean half an inch with a wet toothbrush. The cleaned patch was put under a microscope, and Processor Boule found evidence of Ph’cenne. Then Professor Boule showed that tne bottom of th? scratchings was lighter in colour than the surface of the stone, suggesting that the reindeer drawing was of recent date. He pronounced the stone a “fake.” , However, other archaelogists were

persuaded to accept the discoveries as genuine. Controversy spread through Europe and America, and, finally an international commission was. sent to Glozel to report. It arrived in early November, and dug over the farm for •everal days. New discoveries were made daily, including a fossilised bone needle, a’stone with another, reindeer .drawing, and a clay brick with aphabetical markings. The brick was em-» bedded at a depth of 2ft. in a bed of sandv clav, above which was black vegetable soil. The soil round the brick was free from any trace of admixture of vegetable particles, and the castings of material which forms round a hard object, under the action of water, just as mud forms round a rock on the seashore, was undisturbed. It certainly seemed as if the clay brick, at any rate, could not have bee'n buried recently. ■The experts dried the object, and found that a thin roots had grown round the tablet.' When, the earth was removed, ’inscribed characters were discovered, similar to those on other objects unearthed at Glozel, one of which also has the finger-marks of the maker on the back of the-clay brick. If the discoveries are genuine antiquities, the European ’alphabet must be ante-dated to 4000 8.C., before Phoenician times. Experts on early writing refuse to accept the inscriptions as if genuine neolithic origin, as Professor. Boule ’•efused to accept the prehistoric engravings. M. Camille Jullian, the authority upon Gaulish history, has demonstrated ' that WF brick is nothinc less than an advertisement for Vichy Wafer. Writing in the current number of the “Revue des Etudes Anciennes ” M. Julian expressed the opinion that the inscription is in the debased Latin script of Gaul in the early centuries, A.D., and should be reconstructed thus: “TXLITER NCBTS LOOUITI’R AX.I'T OPTTULARETTS AM ARE SIC: NOVA HUN A CINO CALENDAS APRTLTS ADITE SUXONEM LAVATTM.” Translated, this reads:— “A.X.-thus speaks to you: In order to help you to love, act thus:, at the J new moon, about the April Kalends, go to Suxon to take the baths.” M. Jullian says that “Suxon” is the Latin name for Sichon, the stream which flows through Glozel on its way to Vichy “A..” are the initials ot a Gaulish sorceress, whom M.. Julian believes to have written the inscription. If M. Jullian is right, the Glozel discoveries are not prehistoric, bu: a co - o«sal joke perpetrated by some Gaulish magician. Other experts are convinced that the articles are of much morer-e--cent origin. On the other hand, th e re is a bodv of expert opinion, including M. Salomon Ranacli, sn ”PU Dr. Morlet in his belief that the disco - eries are genuine, among them, severa members of ‘he unternationa controls- , sion which has visited Glozel.